Abandoned Office

Theme

“You and some friends discover an old abandoned office. After you enter, the door locks behind you and you find you are trapped with no obvious way to escape. You have 60 minutes to find a way out.”

Hosts

After having a little trouble with a wrong turn and the satnav taking us on a magical mystery tour of Bristol, we called for some assistance from one of the hosts who gave us directions to an area we had been around 30 minutes before as it was poorly signposted (a little frustrating after a late new years celebration). We got a friendly greeting from three members of staff and took a seat in the waiting area. One of the hosts took us through his first solo briefing; which he delivered very well and we were shown to the room.

Room Setup

The room was very dark and the floor was uneven, we asked the host if it would get lighter which he said it wouldn’t; however he was kind enough to give us both torches to help us see a little better. The room fit the tittle and appeared very “abandoned”, it was sparse and dusty with a few bits of office furniture to set the scene. There was adequate floor space for the maximum team size which is advertised as 10 players but this game was a massive health and safety issue.

Game Play

This was a very linear game which had a good flow, with all but one of the locks opened using coded padlocks; the other was electronically opened. The room was very logical and made good use of Laura’s observational skills as well as utilising Becky’s mathematical code breaking ability. In terms of the number of puzzles, there wasn’t many so larger teams members may be limited to how much they can take part in.

Clue System

We were given a walkie-talkie at the beginning of the game to contact the host, this is how clues were delivered.

Escape Time

38 minutes

Our Overall Rating

Puzzles ★☆☆☆☆

Immersion ☆☆☆☆☆

Difficulty ☆☆☆☆☆

Wow Factor ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall Experience ★☆☆☆☆

Of all the escape rooms we have played previous, this has been the first where we have felt a little underwhelmed on completion. I think Laura actually said “Oh is that it” once the door was open and we were greeted again by our host. Once we had our debrief, we had a little chat with the guys about the other rooms they had to offer. This conversation was over heard by the manager who gave us a sneak peek into their new room which he was in the midst of setting up. This room looked interesting and had a lot more tech which was worlds apart from the abandoned office; we were intrigued to find out what it was like. We wouldn’t recommend this game for future players.